Migrating from vitest-react-native

If you used vitest-community/vitest-react-native and it stopped working on a newer Vitest, this is the continuation you're looking for.

The short version: it's the same idea, maintained. The original plugin and vitest-native's default engine share the same architecture — externalize React Native to Node, strip its Flow types through a require hook, and mock only the thin native boundary (View / Text / UIManager / NativeModules / …). The original simply went unmaintained through Vitest's module-runner rewrites (v2 → v3 → v4) and bit-rotted. vitest-native tracks current Vitest and React Native, and a CI matrix gates it across both so it stays alive.

For the common case — render real RN with RNTL, mock your own modules with vi.mock — migration is a config swap.

1. Swap the package

# remove the old plugin
npm rm vitest-react-native @vitejs/plugin-react

# add this one (+ the babel preset it uses to strip RN's Flow types)
npm i -D vitest-native @react-native/babel-preset @babel/core

Keep your existing vitest, vite, react, react-native, and @testing-library/react-native. Requirements: Vitest 4.x or 5.x, Vite ^6.4.2, ^7.3.2, or ^8.0.5, the React version required by your RN release, React Native 0.81–0.88 (validated in CI), and RNTL 12–14. RNTL 14 uses async rendering APIs. vitest-native supports Node 22.13+ on Node 22, or 24.3+.

2. Update vitest.config

Before (vitest-react-native):

import reactNative from 'vitest-react-native'
import react from '@vitejs/plugin-react'
import { defineConfig } from 'vitest/config'

export default defineConfig({
  plugins: [reactNative(), react()],
})

After (vitest-native):

import { reactNative } from 'vitest-native'
import { defineConfig } from 'vitest/config'

export default defineConfig({
  plugins: [reactNative()],
})

Two changes:

• Named import — import { reactNative }, not a default import.
• Drop @vitejs/plugin-react — vitest-native configures the JSX runtime itself (both engines). Adding plugin-react alongside it is unnecessary and can double-transform.

That's it. reactNative() with no options resolves to the native engine (real RN) whenever @react-native/babel-preset is installed, which it now is.

3. Run

npx vitest run

Your existing tests render against real React Native exactly as before.

What's the same

• Real RN component rendering via @testing-library/react-native.
• vi.mock() of your own modules (anything in your app's source graph).
• Standard Vitest everything — expect, vi.fn, coverage, watch, UI.

What's new (and optional)

• Native is the zero-config default, but a fast mock engine is one option away — reactNative({ engine: 'mock' }) — for pure-logic and environment-control tests. A CI-gated cross-check keeps the mock behaviorally honest against real RN.
• Presets auto-shadow common native libraries (Reanimated, Gesture Handler, Safe Area, Navigation, …) the way jest mocks them — no per-lib wiring.
• A hot runtime, opt-in where the run can be bounded (hotRuntime: 'auto'), keeps RN warm across files while resetting app/test modules and common process-wide pollution between files. It uses Vitest's custom worker APIs and has known differences from per-file isolation; the default, hotRuntime: false, gives each file a fresh worker.

Gotchas (the margins)

These are inherent to running RN externalized to Node — they applied to the original plugin too:

• vi.mock of an externalized RN-side library may not intercept. Libraries that load through Node (not your Vite source graph) bypass Vitest's mocker. Prefer a preset (if one exists) or mock at the boundary. Your own modules mock normally.
• Custom Babel plugins don't run. Transforms go through Vite/esbuild, not your babel.config.js. Flow/TS stripping for RN and allow-listed packages is handled by the require hook; use the transform allowlist for extra pure-JS packages that ship untranspiled source.

If something that worked under the old plugin doesn't here, open an issue — parity with vitest-react-native is a goal, and the cross-check corpus is how we prove it.